616
The Green Bag
and contra where the law is in doubt, but no indication of the opinion of the
editor to relieve the student of the whole some difficulty of making up his own mind. In his first work as a law writer, Pro
fessor Williston took the safe course of
Williston did a most valuable workina rather obscure way, efiacing himself so that he might thereby preserve the integ rity of the original work. Professor Williston's work was not confined, how ever, to his elaborate annotation of Sir ters Frederick were Pollock's inserted text. upon subjects Whole chap not
doing the apprentice work of an editor.
The eighth edition of Parsons on Contract was annotated by him in a most accept
treated in the original work at all, but ment necessary of thetogeneral make principles it a complete of contratt state
able manner (1893), the work being con
fined conservatively to supplementary notes collecting the later authorities. There were, however, many editorial notes, dealing with matters not dreamt
of in Parsons‘ philosophy, which showed the real powers of the modest editor. About tion of this Stephen time, on also, Pleading he made which an edi~ has proved useful to many students of that difiicult subject. Professor Williston's contributions to legal periodicals cover
law. In these chapters, such as that upon the place of the third party in a contrac tual arrangement, Professor Williston displayed that originality in the explana tion of a situation which is characterisnt of the greatest jurists.
fessor The Williston most important has written book which is his L8" PW governing the Sale of Goods at Comm‘m
Law and under the Uniform sales A“ tated (1909).by The the progression form of thisof book the was sectwfl5 filc'
the whole time of his teaching and the
whole range of his work. So many of these are now incorporated in his later treatises that it is not necessary to recite
their titles. There have been some his toric controversies which Professor Wil liston has carried on in legal periodicals with other distinguished professors in which the course of his reasoning and the
force of his argument have been especially noteworthy.
Anyone
who has read
anything which Professor Williston has written must have felt the charm of his style, but the flow of his language is so appropriate to the subject that one hardly gives it a thought. Professor Williston has produced with in the last few years two treatises of the highest value to the legal profession. It is to be feared that the great worth of the first of these has not been as generally appreciated by the profession at large as it deserves to be. In the making of the third American edition of Pollock's Principles of Contracts (1906), Professor
in the Sales Act; and it is highly 9'5‘ nificant of the character of his work 111
drafting that act that this arrangement makes so logical a development of the subject. In the elaborate statement of the panies common the successive law rules,. sections which 86mm’ of the
statute, one may see also what statute making can be in the hands of a master The statute is only codification where the
common law rules can be defended 0” sound principle; but Professor Williswn is unusually catholic in recognizing that theretoare ing established many sound rules,reasons which for arebold‘ not
ordinarily given due consideration by a mere scholar. Moreover, where the common law had not yet develo sufficiently to deal with modern business as it actually is, Professor WillistOfl has the no hesitation situation in which making upon that a broad the lawView for of the situation ought to bethelaw- A5 for the execution of the work, it is gene"
gl
